The Hill has an encouraging
article today, quoting several prominent members of
Congress--and Clinton/Obama surrogates--acknowledging that
Democrats likely won't be able to find the money or support to
enact sweeping health care legislation if one of the two Democratic
candidates is elected. Both plans were descriped by members as
being too ambitious and costly to have a realistic chance of
passage.
Among the comments:
"We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,"
said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a Finance Committee member and
an Obama supporter, referring to the presidential candidates'
healthcare plans. "What they are doing is ... laying out their
ambitions."
...
Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), a member of Senate Democratic
leadership and a key Hillary Clinton ally who also sits on the
Finance Committee, said he is "not sure we have the big plan on
healthcare."
"Healthcare I feel strongly about, but I am not sure that we're
ready for a major national healthcare plan," Schumer said.
...
Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), a Clinton supporter who sits on the
House Ways and Means Committee, said "the money is not necessarily
there right now" to enact the plans and said calls to end the war
in Iraq might consume Washington's attention. The healthcare
proposals are a "really good start," he said, but any promises that
the next Congress would enact the healthcare plans "at even the
beginning of next year to mid-next year would really be political
talk at this point.
"I hear on the campaign trail, 'This is what I'm going to do,'
as if there is not a Congress here with feelings and experience on
this issue," Meek said. "I think it's important that everyone takes
that into consideration and that this is not a kingdom, this is a
democracy."
Democrats will likely take a more
incremental approach, such as a renewed push to enact S-CHIP. But
this speaks to one of the positive aspects of a bicameral
republican government that our founders created -- that it's really
difficult to make any big, transformational changes in one fell
swoop. This aspect of our system hinders conservatives' attempts to
reign in the excesses of the welfare state, or to reform
entitlements as we saw with the Social Security personal accounts
debacle, but it also makes it easier to stop really bad things from
happening when a liberal Democratic president comes to town with a
Democratic Congressional majority.
Via Matt Yglesias, who is "disappointed."
topics:
Health Care, Hillary Clinton, Entitlements, Social Security, Law, Iraq
